1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data storage device which accepts uploading of a document through a network, a data storage method, and a program thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic document storage system installed within a corporate network such as an intranet is concerned with a limited number of users. On the other hand, in the case of an electronic document storage system of an application service placed and operated within the Internet, the system can be used from anywhere if there is an environment that enables access to the Internet. For example, the system can be accessed from affiliate companies as well as in-house users, allowing exchange of electronic documents between such users.
However, such electronic document storage systems using the World Wide Web (WWW) each have each a unique user interface and the user needs to learn how to use the user interface in order to exchange documents using such electronic document storage system.
Besides the Internet, another commonly used method is e-mail. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-133600 discusses a method of using e-mail as the interface of an electronic document storage system.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-133600, “shared project name” and “ID generated by random numbers” are added to the message subject as an authentication key in using an electronic document storage system by e-mail. With this character string as the authentication key, operations such as “download”, “upload”, “gain proprietary right”, and “transfer proprietary right” can be performed on the electronic document storage system. According to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-133600, if the authentication key is known, all of the operations can be performed, and the shared data list can be obtained.
However, as mentioned above, there are preconditions for uploading electronic documents on the electronic document storage system, and they become a burdensome problem for users as follows.
The first problem is that the user account of the uploading user has to be managed (registered) within the electronic document storage system. This condition raises the following issues. First, it is necessary to issue a user account even in the case of a temporary usage in order to prevent unauthorized usage by a third party. In addition, the uploading user himself needs to manage the account information (user name and password).
The second problem is that an appropriate access right should be set on the user account. Due to this precondition, an appropriate access right to the folder needs to be set to the user account of the uploading user. Consequently, in the case where the uploading user belongs to an organization outside the upload requesting user, company confidential document information can be accessed if an inappropriate access right is set, which poses danger of an information leak.
The third problem is that the uploading user has to know the path to the folder to which data is uploaded. This precondition raises an issue in the case where a confidential name of a company is used as the folder name in the path to the uploaded folder. In particular, similarly to the second precondition, in the case where the uploading user belongs to an organization outside the company, the confidential information of the company which is used as the folder name can be leaked.